Real People.
Real Jobs.
Real Connections.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Thanks to Jennifer McClure for directing me to this video. Jennifer is the president of Unbridled Talent, and one of my recruiting heros. She is thoughtful, involved and supportive. She is a true leader in the recruiting and HR industry and in her community. Follow her on Twitter. Enjoy this short talk on leadership and followership, and have a great week!

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Have you tended to your LinkedIn profile lately? If you're actively seeking employment, it's likely that you visit LinkedIn at least weekly. Even if you're happily employed, this recession has taught you to nurture your networks and leverage social media to maintain valuable contacts.

Yesterday, LinkedIn announced new features aimed to improve results for active and passive jobseekers. LinkedIn Job For You leverages the information provided in your profile to serve up job ads that match your experience. Early tests show that the recommendations prove to be pretty accurate. To do: Make sure your profile is up-to-date, accurate and uses descriptive words. Avoid abbreviations and jargon, and make sure you that you highlight your relevant experience in the summary section.

Another long awaited feature, LinkedIn Referral Engine, is scheduled to be fully released in the first half of 2011, but some LinkedIn customers (employers) are using a beta version. The Referral Engine will make it easier for employees to refer their LinkedIn contacts for open positions. Employees are often incentivized to submit referrals -- many companies offer cash bonuses when a referred contact gets hired. What does this mean to you? In this case, size matters. The larger your network, the better chance that one of your contacts will refer you for an open position.

Lastly, have you checked out LinkedIn Company pages? They are terrific resources when researching potential employers. I'll write a more in-depth post about how to leverage the rich information found in LinkedIn Company pages next week. In the meantime, have a great weekend!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

A quick word about about attitude. If you're in the job market (and you're always in the job market, passively or actively), you must become aware of your aura, your energy, your attitude.

And you have to learn how to manage your physical impression.

It's hard to write about this. There is no concrete study I can point to. But I know that if you're negative, depressed, bitter, angry, distrustful, skeptical, sad or otherwise unpleasant, you hurt your chances with potential employers.

I'm not saying your feelings are invalid -- far from it. Layoffs are unfair. The job market is rife with ageism, sexism, racism and any other type of "ism" you can think of . The slow economic recovery is downright depressing. You haven't gotten a raise in ages.

But you can't let these emotions overtake the happy, confident you. Bitterness announces itself like bad cologne. Once it's in the room, it's hard not to notice. And potential employers, or customers or contacts can't wait to get away from negative energy, and will be reluctant to invite bitterness into an already stressed workplace environment.

So shake it off. Exercise. Laugh. Listen to music. Read good books. Go to church (or not). Turn off the evening news. Do what you do to stay positive.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Sunday, October 24, 2010

BREAKING NEWS: We're giving away a ticket to the 2010 Career Summit. The Summit is a 5-week series of online sessions delivered by top recruiters (from Microsoft, Starbucks and Facebook) and top career advisors and authors.

To qualify for the free ticket, send a brief email (1 paragraph, 2 at the most) that tells us why you would like to attend. We'll pick the most compelling response by 4pm EST Monday, Oct 25. Act fast - we can only give away ONE ticket.

Access to the Summit, and all related materials, is $199. A bargain, if you ask me.

I'm old school. I think that jobseeker resources should be free. Here are a few reasons I think this event is worth the price of admission:

I personally know many of the speakers. These folks are genuinely interested in helping jobseekers. They will bring it

The bonus material promises to be a treasure trove of jobseeker resources

Even if you are currently employed, now is a good time to do some soul-searching and think about the future and what it means for your career

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Last Monday I conducted a workshop for jobseekers. A friend, who leads a "Life Group" at her church, asked me to talk about social media. This is one of those activities that make my life uber-busy, but I love to do it. I couldn't say no.

The church was in an affluent middle class suburb of Seattle. There was a Starbucks-like cafe in the lobby, computer kiosks everywhere and free wifi. I had barely entered the lobby before someone offered me dinner. There was a band, and plush seating for relaxing. It's been a while since I've been to church, so all of this impressed me.

Most of the two dozen workshop participants had been laid off, or couldn't find new contracts. They were mainly professionals with good educations and solid skills. Most were over 40. Some had their laptops, those who didn't came prepared to take notes. They were serious about securing their next opportunity (most were shocked at how difficult it had become to find a new position).

I always share this graphic when speaking to jobseekers (data from the Career Crossroads Source of Hire Study):

Then I tell them, their number one job as a jobseeker is to get themselves referred.

"How?", they ask.

That's where social media comes in, I tell them. "You have to make friends."

They began to gripe and moan, and listed a dozen reasons why they didn't want to talk to strangers on the internet.

"You double your chances of getting a job if you get referred."

One woman waved a manilla folder, three inches thick, filled with applications. "I applied online to all of these jobs."

"What," I asked, "were the results?"

"But it used to be so straightforward," someone lamented. "Now we have to connect with this one and that one...what happened to the human touch?"

It occurred to me - right then and there -- that these boomers weren't necessarily looking for a human touch. What could be more personal than reaching out an actual human to get referred for a job (compared to submitting an online application and hoping for the best)?

They longed for the simplicity and anonymity of submitting an application and waiting for the "system" to work. Those days, I told them, have passed. In this job market -- and likely even as the economy perks up -- they were going to have to compete for a job in the way small business owners compete for customers.

We spent the next hour discussing their trepidation about social networking -- rejection, privacy, security, exposure. I never even got to demo LinkedIn.

They asked if I could come back. That's a good sign. They're listening.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Can you believe the summer's over? Amazing how time flies when writing...writing code and writing white papers. We spent our summer vacation working on adding features that enhance Tweetajob functionality and results for employers. We're unveiling Tweetajob Attract at the Online Recruiting Conference in Chicago this week.

If you're at the conference, stop by Booth 105 to say hello and take a quick tour. We can't wait to show off the most sophisticated job tweeting technology in the industry!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Monday, August 9, 2010

Last weekend, I participated in a panel discussion at the fifth annual Blogher Conference. The panel was moderated by Laurie Ruettimann, HR consultant and blogger at Punk Rock HR and The Cynical Girl; my fellow panelists were Heather McGough, top Recruiter at Microsoft (and blogger at People First) and Ana Roca Castro, Founder of Premier Social Media.com.

We had a lively discussion about how to navigate social media effectively, with plenty of great questions from the audience. Read the live-blogged recap here.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Monday, May 17, 2010

Is Twitter for you? Maybe. Maybe not. It takes a bit of time to understand the usefulness of Twitter.We'll send you one action item a day for 30 days. At the end of our journey, you will be Twitter-literate.Then, you decide if Twitter is for you!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Did you know that 42% of recruiters use Twitter to find and attract candidates? Are you interested in learning how to find and connect with these recruiters? Learn how to leverage the power of Twitter to turbo-charge your job search. If you have a Tweetajob account, you will find a link to the eBook on your profile page. For newcomers to Tweetajob, simply complete a profile (it takes 2 minutes) to download.

The eBook was written by Marci Reynolds, the founder of J2B Marketing, an Internet Marketing and Copywriting firm for jobseekers.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

I just talked to "Chris" a customer service representative for a government agency. A few minutes into the call, she made me laugh. Hard. She went on to answer my questions -- she was efficient and knowledgeable -- and I continued think about our interaction. I don't know if it's true, but it seems that Chris loves her work. She likes talking to customers and answering questions. The work suits her.

Today's question is designed to give pause. Do you love your work? Do you look forward to meeting your daily goals, and completing your to-do list? Do you get a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day?

We can't always have the work or job that satisfies us most. But we should frequently take a few minutes to assess whether or not we're happy, living up to our potential and contributing our best.

Monday, January 11, 2010

We like trophies at Tweetajob. We don't have any, but we like them. So we have decided to enter the second annual Shorty Awards. We're not sure that winning a Shorty Award will get us a trophy, but we're hopeful to be invited to the groovy party in New York.

Shorty awards are given to the best producers of short, real-time content on the web. So we're starting our write-in campaign. We created a category -- #jobs -- and we already have about a half dozen votes. We'll need a few thousand votes to win. Vote for us by selecting "other" and writing-in the #jobs hashtag.

Why are we doing this? Partly because we think that getting an award would be awesome. We'd also like to bring attention to #jobs on Twitter. With unemployment taking its toll in so many communities, we want to make sure that jobseekers use every available tool -- including Twitter -- to find gainful employment.